Communiqué 58: The making of an African mixed martial arts league

The African Warriors Fighting Championship has carved out a niche for itself as Africa’s answer to the WWE and UFC. But just how big can it grow?

1. In the arena

2024 was marked with high-profile defeats for Nigerian combat sports athletes. Anthony Joshua suffered a devastating loss to British fighter Daniel Dubois, breaking his four-match winning streak, and UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya fell short in his last title defense.

These setbacks cast a shadow over Nigeria’s presence in global combat sports, with fans and analysts questioning the future of the country’s fighters on the world stage.

As all this went on, the African Warriors Fighting Championship (AWFC) was carving a new niche for itself with Dambe, an ancient form of wrestling predominantly practiced in Northern Nigeria.

In January 2024, the AWFC hosted a Dambe match between Shagon Yellow and Luke Leyland. It was the first match between a Nigerian and a foreign Dambe fighter. While the British Luke Leyland suffered a resounding defeat at the hands of Shagon Yellow, the match signaled the promise of the AWFC to turn Dambe from a local recreational pastime into a global combat sport on par with WWE and the UFC.

A few months after the Leyland fight, popular crypto betting company Stake, with a history of sponsoring high-profile sports brands like the Alfa Romeo Formula 1 team and English Premier League club Everton FC, came on board as the official sponsor of the AWFC. Later in the year, Silverbacks Holdings, a private equity firm focused on emerging media and sports properties, including the NBA's Basketball Africa League, invested in AWFC.

With these strategic investments, the AWFC is now poised to expand its operations, host larger-scale events, and bring African combat sports to an even wider audience. It had taken years of hard work to get to this point, and six years after the first AWFC match held in Enugu, Southeastern Nigeria, the work was still just beginning.

2. An African challenger

In November 2024, after securing his second term as U.S. president, Donald Trump made one of his highest-profile public appearances at an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event held at Madison Square Garden in New York. It was proof of the growing ascendancy of mixed martial arts sports in popular culture, a rise that began with the acquisition of UFC in 2001.

In 2001, a consortium of investors acquired the struggling UFC from its founders for $2 million. The new management came in and implemented changes, choosing to forego traditional cable TV, where the UFC was considered too gory, for fledgling streaming services and other online distribution channels and developing a reality TV show around the sport. Those decisions paid off in 2016 when the UFC was acquired by global talent and media agency Endeavor for $4 billion, a 2,000% increase on the original $2 million that was paid for it 15 years prior. Two years later, ONE Championship, the UFC's primary competitor in Asia, received a $100 million investment, valuing it at $1 billion, only seven years after its founding.

In London, Maxwell Kalu, a communications executive, was paying attention to the trend, but he had also realized that Africa was underrepresented in this market, with no martial arts league of international standing. He returned home with the mission to bring the UFC to Africa, starting with his home country of Nigeria. On getting back to Nigeria during a two-month fact-finding mission, he found Dambe, and his mission changed. Instead of bringing the UFC to Africa, he was going to take Dambe to the world.

In 2018, Maxwell launched AWFC with a mission to professionalize and promote traditional African combat sports. Modeled after the UFC and ONE Championship in Asia, AWFC operates as a promoter, scouting the best talent from Dambe camps across northern Nigeria. The league hosts high-profile events, produces premium content, and distributes it globally, all while improving health and safety standards and increasing financial rewards for fighters.

AWFC’s events are structured around the traditional house system of Dambe, with fighters from one house competing only against those from rival houses. This unique format preserves the sport’s cultural roots while adding a layer of competitive intrigue. Since its inception, AWFC has amassed over 700 million views on its content, with the U.S. and Brazil emerging as key markets, a similar trend with other mixed martial arts leagues across the world.

3. Expanding AWFC’s global footprint

In its first seven years of existence, AWFC has successfully proven its thesis that African combat sports can be transformed into professional properties. Now, it has to become a global product. In doing this, its leadership must adopt a multifaceted approach.

I. Broadcasting and streaming deals

The first cornerstone of AWFC’s growth strategy lies in securing lucrative broadcasting and streaming partnerships to bring its events to a wider audience. Traditionally, combat sports tend to fare better on streaming platforms than on traditional ones because the content is not considered family-friendly.

AWFC can partner with established streaming services such as ESPN+, DAZN, or even regional players like Showmax and StarTimes to bring Dambe to international markets. Already, AWFC has partnered with Afroland TV, a streaming service focused on the global Black and Caribbean community, to broadcast fights in the U.S., but it has not signed any deals in Africa or Europe.

The organization should consider partnerships with platforms like YouTube and TikTok, whose short-form content capabilities are ideal for engaging younger demographics. By packaging its content into bite-sized highlights, behind-the-scenes footage, and fighter profiles, the AWFC can cultivate a loyal fanbase while monetizing through targeted advertising and subscription models. There's an opportunity for AWFC to develop its streaming service, as the UFC has done with Fight Pass. Following the Silverback investment, AWFC hinted at plans to do just that.

II. Development of intellectual property

Beyond streaming and broadcast deals to cover the fights, the AWFC has an opportunity to create value by developing a robust portfolio of intellectual property around Dambe. The UFC's growth was supercharged by its reality TV show The Ultimate Fighter during the 2000s and 2010s, but Fight Island, a series of fights held on a sequestered private island in 2020 and 2021, helped drive growth during the pandemic. Similarly, Formula 1 has seen a new lease on life and growth since the release of Drive To Survive, a Netflix documentary about the racing sport. The AWFC can invest in building a narrative-driven ecosystem around its fighters, events, and traditions.

III. Consolidating African martial arts

Dambe is currently the only sport the AWFC promotes, but there are other traditional combat sports across the continent, like Ngolo in Angola and Laamb in Senegal. ONE Championship has used this strategy successfully in Asia, combining different Asian forms of martial arts, including submission grappling and Burmese boxing, with its traditional offerings. Also, in 2023, Endeavor merged the UFC with WWE, creating a combat sports super company worth $21 billion and bringing both sports under the same organization. The AWFC can play a similar role in Africa, positioning itself as the exclusive promoter of African combat sports globally.

As the African Warriors Fighting Championship (AWFC) continues to grow, it will inevitably face growing pains. One of the most pressing challenges will be fighter compensation. As seen in the UFC, where the fighters demanded more than the 15% revenue share, AWFC athletes will eventually demand a larger share of company revenues, leading to potential labor disputes and negotiations over revenue-sharing models. Ensuring fair compensation while maintaining financial sustainability will be a delicate balancing act for AWFC.

Beyond financial disputes, regulatory challenges will emerge as Dambe expands beyond its traditional strongholds. The league may have to navigate varying combat sports laws across different countries, balancing cultural authenticity with the health and safety standards required for mainstream acceptance. Additionally, securing long-term broadcasting deals and expanding global viewership will require significant investment in marketing, technology, and audience engagement strategies. There is also the challenge of talent development. While Dambe has a deep-rooted history in Nigeria, AWFC will need to establish structured training academies and recruitment pipelines to ensure a steady influx of elite fighters. This is especially important if it seeks to grow beyond Nigeria and incorporate other African combat sports like Ngolo and Laambe.

Despite these hurdles, the AWFC has already proven that it has the resilience to redefine African combat sports. If the league can weather these challenges, it could cement itself as a dominant force, placing Africa firmly on the map in a way that has never been done before.